Wonderland Burlesque's The Twelve Days Before Xmas - Day Six: A Spaceman Came Travelling by Chris de Burgh

Wonderland Burlesque's

The Twelve Days Before Xmas

 Day Six: 

A Spaceman Came Travelling by Chris de Burgh

We're over half-way there, folks! Just five days to go until the big day.

Time to climb back into the Wonderland Burlesque time machine and countdown to the big day. This holiday season, the dial is set for the 1970's!

Oh, you are in for a treat, so grab a seat and buckle up.

The seventies was a decade of change, turbulence and sweetness. Nowhere is this more felt than in the breadth and depth of the music of the time. There were so many different genres being developed, evolving and seeking validation on the radio and the industry music charts, it was a virtual musical cornucopia.

So, get ready for another song of the season by one of our biggest (and not so big) stars, here, stateside, and across the pond, who made the seventies truly magical.

Next up... storyteller Chris de Burgh's other-worldly take on the nativity, A Spaceman Came Travelling.  

A Spaceman Came Travelling first appeared on Chris de Burgh's second studio album, Spanish Train and Other Stories, which was released in 1975. Since that time it has been released numerous times as a single. After its first release in 1975, the song saw minimal success in the UK. However, it eventually hit #1 in Ireland, staying on the charts for 15 total weeks and climbed to #22 on the Canadian AC charts in 1978. Following de Burgh's inescapable hit The Lady in Red in 1986, A Spaceman Came Travelling was reworked with a re-recorded vocal and reissued as a double A-side with the song The Ballroom of Romance. The new version charted for the first time in the UK, reaching #40 and staying on the British charts for five weeks.

Regarding the song's inception, De Burgh, who had just signed his first recording contract with A&M Records, was broke and "staying at a friend's flat" when he read Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Däniken. The book made him think "what if the star of Bethlehem was a space craft and what if there is a benevolent being or entity in the universe keeping an eye on the world and our foolish things that we do to each other?" And though the song failed to chart when first released as a single, de Burgh says it's been "much better to have a regular recurring song than a hit for three weeks" - referring to the song's regular airplay on UK radio during the holiday season.

 

A Spaceman Came Travelling - Chris de Burgh